NASA's space probe Dawn captured this image of Ceres at a distance of 50,000Km.
The probe is expected to arrive and orbit Ceres on or bout March 5th 2015.
The image shows two distinct white blemishes. One is slightly larger than the other.
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Chances are when we looked up at the night sky we see stars that twinkle.
The twinkling process is the light of the star being distorted by the earth's upper atmosphere.
The planets in our night sky are easier to spot especially the larger ones like Mercury, Venus Mars Jupiter and Saturn. Ge...

We still have a few months to go before New Horizons reaches Pluto. As yet we know very little about this tiny frozen world, but I am sure we will in for a few surprises.
The probe is expected to reach Pluto around the middle of July 2015, if all goes well.
The images taken by the ...

For the remainder of this month Mars and Venus can be seen in both the morning and evening skies.
If you are an early riser then looking east just before sunrise both planet can be seen in close proximity. Mars will be slightly to the upper right above Venus.
Conversely both planets can al...

Mars or bust. Since 2013 literally thousands of want to be astronauts enlisted on a one-way ticket to Mars.
One part of me says that is very commendable. The other part of me thinks ....really!
Out of the many thousands who applied only around 100 candidates so far maybe eligible for ...

Every now and again you get an image that comes completely from left field.
There are a number of astronomical oddities that occur on a regular basis. For example I took an image of the moon (2008) whereby the moon and two bright stars that where in alignment, and from earth it looked like t...

To be able to actually see a comet close up and personal come to life is in its self quite an achievement.
For centuries the only way to see a distant comet was through a telescope.
Now we are able to see the unfolding and inner workings of a comet in real time.
The European Space pro...

Quasars is a term used to refer to a particular celestial object. The term quasar referred to as being almost a star, or 'quasi-stellar'. This particular term arose from radio astronomy.
Quasars were originally discovered using a radio telescope, surprisingly only around 10% of quasars and m...

Earth is no stranger to seeing meteorites, fireballs the very fabric of space falling to earth.
From time to time other objects fall to earth. Manmade objects such as spent rocket boosters and other sundry parts.
This particular encounter with earth's atmosphere was seen from the Intern...

We are so very fortunate to have in our very own Solar System a planet of ample size and beauty.
Well there is more than one beautiful planet in our Solar System. (The one I am referring to in this case is Saturn.)
Saturn is unique within our Solar System in as much as it has masses of lar...

Are humans able to colonise other planets or distant star systems in the future
The romantic notion of humans living in outer space has been mankind's dream.
At the sake of sounding like a pessimist, any future space colonisation seems very doubtful.
Think of the enormous costs and res...

It just goes to show you how unpredictable asteroids can be. As asteroid 2004BL86 made a brief appearance earlier this month.
The asteroid the size of a massive Mountain was carrying a surrogates.
These images were generated by the deep space network using radar.
The size of the ...

image taken with canon 600D by CMS2015
The night sky has something for just about everyone.
If you are interested in spotting plants or constellations, there is all way is something showing.
What's more the show is free. You don't even need any fancy equipment just your eyes will do the t...

Is Pluto souls system's final frontier Not much is known about this distant object.
Pluto remains somewhat shrouded in mystery. Even with our best earth based telescopes Pluto remains just a blob of light.
The Hubble telescope has provided somewhat better images of Pluto. The images tha...

It is not very often that we are able to see an asteroid moving in real time.
Asteroid 2004BL86 was discovered 11 years ago with an estimated diameter of 1000 m.
That is quite a large chunk of material moving and 56,000 kmh.
Asteroid 2004BL86 will fly by on the 26th of January 2...

An Iridium 'Flare' is when the sunlight is reflected by the solar panes of the orbiting satellite.
For the past 50 plus decades there have been countless objects launched into space.
For every satellite or space object launched above earth's atmosphere brings its own set of consequences.
...

The Australian radio telescope located in Parks New South Wales has provided an electronic viewpoint in 'real time'.
The parks radio telescope was responsible in providing television and telemetry signals for the Apollo moon missions.
Although the radio telescope has chalked up a few...

There is strong evidence to suggests that there may be other planets in the deep depth of our solar system.
During the 18th-century planet 'Vulcan' was thought to exist orbiting between the of the sun and Mercury.
However this theory was later discounted. The story Vulcan was w...

Unfortunately not every Mars mission is successful. There have been many failures from spacecraft that have either malfunction or crashed on the surface of Mars.
Unfortunately the British led spacecraft called the Beagle-2 suffered the same fate as some of its predecessors. Almost 11 yea...